when you go to the store to buy potting mix what is it that you're actually buying well i've got four bags that run from relatively cheap to quite expensive that i'm going to take a look at join me today as i look at the differences in potting mixes [Music] hi i'm gardner scott and potting mixes are a necessary part of gardening for most of us when we're starting seeds and growing those seedlings it's in a potting mix if you grow in pots and containers it's usually in a potting mix and for most gardeners particularly new gardeners a potting mix is the first thing you grab when you look to improve the soil in your garden beds as i look at these four bags in particular i notice an interesting difference the two cheaper bags the big name bags that i got at the big box garden center are labeled as potting mix these other bags that i got at my local nursery that are much more expensive are labeled as potting soil for our purposes today potting mix and potting soil are the same you'll notice a difference in ingredients but how we use them in the garden is going to be identical so let's take a look at what i have my first bag is stay green potting mix with added fertilizer this is a national brand and you will probably see it in your store in the united states it's recommended for container gardening and the fertilizer according to the company feeds for up to nine months i got this 64 quart bag for 11.98 [Music] which works out to about 19 cents per quart the next is a miracle grow moisture control potting mix the big selling point of this one is that it protects against over and under watering because it has added fertilizers it can feed the plants for up to six months it's also recommended for indoor and outdoor container plants this bag cost me 17.98 which works out to about 36 cents per quart fox farm is a favorite premium brand of a lot of growers this is the happy frog mix and i've used this before potting soil contains mycorrhizae and humic acid for indoor and outdoor plants and this bag cost me 28.99 which works out to about 56 cents per quart and from a local colorado company peonia soil this is the bomb mix that i got at my local nursery and it has a ton of different ingredients in here we'll be going through all of this this is a 100 coco husk pete base which makes it different than the others this bag cost 39.99 which works out to about 78 cents per quart now you can obviously grow plants in all of these bags but the most expensive one is four times the cost of the least expensive one and i make my own potting mix just using a blend of peat moss compost and perlite and i'll link to that video at the end of this one so you can see how i do it my mix is even less expensive than the cheapest bag you can buy keep that in mind as we look at the ingredients my blend of peat moss compost and perlite and then how it compares with the rest of these the ingredients in the stay green are pretty basic it's formulated from one or more of peat processed forest products core and or compost along with sphagnum peat moss perlite and fertilizer the fertilizer is derived from ammonium nitrate ammonium phosphate ammonium sulfate calcium phosphate and urea and ammonium phosphate and potassium sulfate which gives a reading of about percent nitrogen point zero eight percent phosphate and point zero six percent potash let's put those numbers in context if you use a 10 10 10 fertilizer that's 10 percent nitrogen 10 phosphorous and 10 percent potassium by weight well when we look at this bag that has point one percent of the nitrogen that means a standard 10 10 10 fertilizer has a hundred times the fertilizer that you would get in this bag now let's go ahead and take a look at what we actually get inside the bag go ahead and open the bag and then scoop out some of this material so we can take a closer look the texture is pretty light but remember it can have forest products in it and forest products usually means ground up trees so there are some chunky pieces of wood here it's not necessarily a bad thing but this is the kind of product you might want to sift before using with young seedlings you can see the little white specks of perlite running through it and occasionally you'll come across one of these little balls these are the slow release fertilizer pellets as i look through this it's not surprising since it's got such a low amount of fertilizer i don't see a lot of those balls but i'm coming across more chunks of wood so keep this in mind the cheaper product is relatively chunky but can be used to grow plants now let's take a look at the miracle grow potting mix this mix is formulated from sphagnum peat moss and then one or more of processed forest products peat and or compost then core perlite and fertilizer and they add a wetting agent now these ingredients vary slightly for some specific states in the united states as to their fertilizer it's derived from ammonium nitrate ammonium phosphate calcium phosphate potassium sulfate ammonium nitrate ammonium phosphate calcium phosphate and potassium sulfate and it has a 0.21 nitrogen 0.11 phosphate and .16 potash about twice as much as the previous bag i'll point out that the miracle grow is the only one that identifies itself as a certified premium potting soil that conforms to the standards of the mulch and soil council let's see how this one compares when we look inside [Applause] the consistency of this is light and fluffy and does have some chunky bits of wood there's those forest products for you it doesn't look much different than the stay grain i can see the little white bits of perlite scattered throughout it has the same type of slow release fertilizer pellets now they market this as moisture control sometimes you'll see polymers added that will absorb and hold water but i don't see anything on the bag about those polymers so i think this just might be marketing because all of the peat that i can see in here and these little strands are the cocoa core the strands of the core and the peat moss are going to hold on to a lot of moisture making this whole mix moisture control now let's take a look at a truly premium mix the happy frog the fox farm mix is 50 to 60 percent aged forest products sphagnum peat moss perlite and fertilizer that is derived from earthworm castings bat guano oyster shell and dolomite lime it also contains a number of different strains of mycorrhizal the biquariza adds a fungal component to this potting soil and a number of studies have shown that a healthy soil includes not only the bacteria but the fungi and as that fungi grows it sends out those little white threads you might see those are the mycorrhizal networks and that enables the roots to absorb the nutrients from the soil so it does make some sense to add it to a mix like this they also get their fertilizers from organic materials the earthworm castings bat guano and oyster shell as opposed to these synthetic granules that were in the previous two mixes so that's one reason why this is more expensive because of the organics now because of the micro rise so let's see what's inside this is also a nice light fluffy mix you may have noted that the ingredients are essentially the same forest products peat moss and perlite and there looks to be a lot more perlite in this mix there's still the chunky wood pieces but this being aged forest products that tells me that they were probably composting it so they break apart pretty easily they're not quite as fresh and chunky as the previous two it's a darker color but as for the texture there really isn't much difference from what we saw in the previous ones now let's take a look at the bomb from peonia soil company now this is a regional company so chances are if you don't live in colorado you might not be able to find this you probably have a regional distributor of potting soils like this you're not going to find them in the big box stores you're going to have to go to your local nursery and ask for a product like this this has a long list of ingredients starting with the coconut husk pete just another name for coco core perlite dynamic dressing compost worm castings kelp meal feather meal gypsum oyster shell flour dolomite lime dried molasses azomite fish bone meal seabird guano humate mastodon pete mycorrhizal inoculant and i looked online they use 12 different inoculants green sand citric acid manganese sulfate zinc sulfate sodium borate and natural potash again they're not using synthetic ingredients like the fox farm and this appears to be all organic potting soil this is noticeably lighter and fluffier it doesn't have forest products so there are no chunks of any type there are some pieces of the coconut fibers so you can see that pretty readily a lot more perlites in this mix the coconut fiber is going to absorb a lot of water the perlites going to add a lot of drainage it's a darker color obviously no synthetic fertilizer pellets in here a substantially noticeable difference from the previous two mixes so what does all of this mean to you as you choose your potting mix or potting soil well it depends on your budget and it depends on how you plan to use these products you saw that the primary ingredients tend to be sphagnum peat moss forest products and perlite in the lower end and the higher end bags the most expensive bags tends to be core based because at least in the united states cocoa core is more expensive than sphagnum peat moss and as you add more ingredients to the bags they get more expensive but do you really need all of those ingredients well if you're growing in a big pot a container that this is going to be the primary medium it makes sense to have a lot of these organic additives they're going to break down over time and give the plants the nutrients that they need the products with the synthetic fertilizers that's only going to last six to nine months but for the organic fertilizers to work you need the development of the microbes and the microrha if you're just potting up seedlings for a couple months and then sticking them into the garden that's not enough time for these organic fertilizers to break down and for the fungal network to become fully established so you might be wasting some money if this is just a short term medium for your plants it might make more sense to use the cheaper products it's not going to hurt anything to have all of this extra stuff added to your potting mix or potting soil so if you can afford these premium mixes go ahead and get the premium mixes but for seed starting and then transplanting on a budget go ahead and get the cheaper products that's a good way to save money and get the same results the choice is yours i tend to go low wind this year i'll be experimenting a little bit more with these high-end products and i'll let you know how that goes to see how i make my most cost effective mix go ahead and check out this video now i'm gardener scott enjoy gardening [Music] you